I am watching Band of Brothers and it's got me thinking when Americans did operation with forces that used bolt actions (Lee Enfields for example) what were their opinions on the garand? Jealousy? Upset that their country didnt get better rifles?
(I'm not American btw)
Speaking from the Soviet side of things, M1 Garand sparked little interest from Soviet military and technical leadership as they were much more interested in acquiring vehicles and fuel from American lendlease. As far as I'm aware, there was single unit supplied to the USSR in 1943 in order to conduct field testing and they eventually came to the conclusion it was not worth it to order supplies of this weapon from USA. Reason for this partially came from the fact Soviets already had their own magazine-fed rifles in the form of SVT-40 which they valued more because of its' extremely light weight.
A conclusion drawn from field research at NIPSVO (Nauchno-Issledovatelsky Poligon Strelkovogo VOoruzhenia, Scientific and Researching Polygon of Personal Firearms) has luckily survived archival dust and can still be accessed today:
Testing results
In terms of shooting precision on distances of up to 100, 300 and 600 meters magazine-fed rifle M1 Garand is comparable to home-made AV-40 rifle or German G-41(W) rifle. Weapon's automatics work reliably.
Positive qualities of M1 Garand
- The rifle is durable and more reliable than AV-40.
- Bullet-loading mechanism is quite original.
Negative qualities of M1 Garand
- Barrel clearing is quite complicated.
- M1's excessive weight doesn't satisfy modern weapon demands.
Source: NIPSVO Field Testing №389, 1943